Many countries, including the US, have guidelines in place to ensure that your water is being checked and regulated for harmful chemicals and your overall water quality.
In the US, the EPA has legally enforceable standards For all the different types of pollutants in your drinking water, as well secondary concerns Which may cause skin irritation or affect your hair. Your local water supplier must produce a new consumer confidence report each year, and EPA has a public database Designed to let you easily view the latest tap water reports for your area. You can read the reports and see if there are any worrisome pollutant levels in your water, but you can rest easy knowing that if any water pollutant exceeds its legal limit, your community will definitely be notified .
If you’re particularly concerned about lead, an easy way to reduce that risk is to run tap water through it for a few minutes before using it. The most dangerous amounts of lead accumulate when water sits in your home’s pipes overnight, so if you flush that water out of the lines, you’ll be better off.
Lead and chlorine in drinking water
Even if your water smells and tastes good, it doesn’t mean that your tap water is free of harmful chemicals. Water pollutants fall into different categories, but the primary concerns in your shower water are toxic metals, chlorine (used as a disinfectant) and the byproducts that chlorine forms with any other chemicals in the water. Any one of these can put a major damper on your shower experience.
The main toxic metals that often lurk in water are arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury, all of which form metals. World Health Organization Top 10 List “Chemicals of major health concern.”
Lead is often considered the biggest contaminant culprit, so even if your water supply is purified, water slowly leaches lead into home plumbing systems, and the toxic metal leaches into the water. Children are particularly at high risk of harsh chemicals and it has been reported that they absorb up to 50% of lead through drinking water. Even at relatively low levels, lead exposure can cause irreversible neurological problems, the WHO reports. This is why water quality should always be considered.
The second main issue is related to chlorine which is used as a disinfectant in our drinking water. The major health concern is actually the byproducts formed when chlorine reacts with natural organic substances in water, creating harmful chemicals called enter inYou’ve probably heard of chloroform, which is just one common THM, and high levels of THMs act as carcinogens.
a study Found that people absorb more THMs from a 10-minute hot shower than from drinking a liter of water, so if you’re concerned about this, a shower filtration system that actively removes chlorine may be helpful. .